New IPL franchises Pune and Rajkot make their draft picks from the suspended Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.

New IPL franchises Pune and Rajkot have made their first signings... Rajkot have picked the likes of Suresh Raina and Brendon McCullum, Pune selected Steve Smith and crucially MS Dhoni, a representative of the franchise expains why...

SOUNDBITE (English) Subroto Talukdar, Pune Representative:

"Dhoni was an automatic choice for us, because we were a new franchisee and we have to build a brand and who could be the best person under the circumstances, it was Mahendra Singh Dhoni, so we had gone for him. Other choices were also as per plan, practically and frankly speaking, we were targeting eight players in order of priority and it worked in this draft, and we had bought players according to plan."

SOUNDBITE (English) Keshav Bansal, Rajkot Director:

"We had a strong assumption that Dhoni would be out, so obviously after Dhoni, Raina is one strong option. He is a fantastic batsman, and he has been playing some great cricket and have lot of expectation from him."

They should do too, Raina costs 1.5m US Dollars a season, Dhoni is 2 million. There's plenty of interest in how they get on at the temporary replacements for Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, who have been suspended for two years over corruption and spot-fixing.